~ A place to share and discover more about volunteering at The Salisbury Museum

HARVEST TIME by Volunteer Alan Clarke

This image here from the museums’s Austin Underwood collection is one such surprise. For many decades I have cycled many miles throughout the county and never seen Christmas-tree stooks like these. I did an image search on Google for stooks but I found none looking like these. On the far side of this field, there are the conventional stooks. These can still (2016) be seen and photographed in at least two places in Wiltshire where materials for thatching are grown. I do not know where Austin took this photograph.

There is a village beyond this field with its church tower, which is why I think it is a village. One of the village houses has a television aerial on the chimney stack. There are many telegraph poles; one with four arms and its array of white insulators for telephone lines as compared to power cables. I guess that this photograph was taken around 1963 and it shows quite a prosperous village to have so many telephone lines for that year. However the fields are small by today’s local standards and hence labour intensive and not so profitable. I cannot make out any farm animals in any of the fields, which might be due to the far fields being out of focus.

If you have ever seen stooks like this or can identify the village, I would love to know and would add the information to the Museum’s records for this image.

As most of you will already know, Alan looks after our photographic archive and provides endless gems like this one with thought-provoking commentary. Thank you as always Alan.

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About Salisbury Museum

Salisbury Museum is based in the King's House, a beautiful medieval building, located opposite Salisbury Cathedral. As a grade I listed building the King's House has a history as fascinating as the collections it now holds. And the museum is once again adding to that rich history as it begins an exciting new phase of redevelopment. Over the next few years Salisbury Museum will be renovating its galleries, breathing new life into its wonderful collections.
The museum's archaeological collections are of outstanding national significance, including some of the most important finds outside a national museum in Britain, and include artifacts from the Stonehenge World Heritage site, the Pitt Rivers Wessex collection, and the Amesbury archer. In June 2012 the museum was awarded £1.8 million by the Heritage Lottery Fund towards the redevelopment of its archaeological galleries in recognition of the importance of the collections. The archaeological collections are currently in storage awaiting their new home in the new Archaeology of Wessex gallery, which will be open in Spring 2014. Although the archaeological collections are pack away, there is still loads to see and do at Salisbury museum.
The museum holds rich and diverse collections relating to the people of Salisbury and the history of the city and surrounding area. Collections include a wonderful medieval collection, with finds from the medieval city, as well as sites like Old Sarum and Clarendon Palace; fascinating displays of costumes and ceramics; and an impressive art collection that includes works by J M W Turner, John Constable, Augustus John and Rex Whistler. The museum also host regular temporary exhibitions.